Tajikistan takes flag pole war to new heights

The remote mountain nation of Tajikistan has begun erecting the world's tallest unsupported flag pole, taking a 'flag war' with its neighbours to new heights.

by Richard Orange in Almaty

7:23PM GMT 24 Nov 2010

President Emomali Rakhmonov, today laid the foundation stone for the National Flag of Tajikistan in the capital, Dushanbe.

An Azerbaijan state flag on the sea-front in Baku

With a height of 541ft, the new flag will pip that of Azerbaijan, the existing record holder, by nine feet. This means Azerbaijan will have held the record for less than a year since it itself stripped it from next door Turkmenistan.

"We try to allow them to hold the record for as long as possible, to make sure that they can hold the record for more than a year," said David Chambers, head of Trident Support Corp, which was the contractor for all three flags. "But if we have another interested party we can't deny them the right to have a world record."

The Guiness Book of Records officially recognised Azerbaijan's 531ft flag in a ceremony held in the capital, Baku, on 29 May.

Turkmenistan had previously held the record, since November 2008, with its flagpole of 436ft. Each pole can carry a giant flag the size of two tennis courts.

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A spokesman for the Guinness Book of Records said the United Arab Emirates had begun the craze when it built a flagpole of 403ft in 2001. It was beaten by Jordan in 2003.

"Hopefully Tajikistan won't hold the record too long, because we want to build another one," Mr Chambers said, adding that he was in talks with five countries about another potential record-breaking flag, with Oman the most likely candidate at present.

Azerbaijan this month consigned its Guinness Book of Records certificate to a new National Flag Museum.